Thursday, October 16, 2008

A few weeks ago I met an American lady who was about as buff ascould be, wearing Yoga pants and a T-shirt with an Indian image on it.I decided to test her level of commitment but not wanting to belittle herfitness regime I semi-casually asked if she was a Yoga instructor. No,she said no, merely a student and lover of Indian culture. She thencorrectly responded to my query by identifying the Hindu deity on the frontof her T-shirt as Lord Ganesa. Cool....and I wasn't about to press her withany more questions because she obviously had genuine knowledge ofIndian 'stuff', and I probably would embarrass myself with my latentignorance of Hindu deities and feeble RAM capability.

Later I got to wondering about Tees with Indian motifs and their appeal toAmericans, something I often do since I was once involved in the businessof creating screen-printed T-shirts.Flickr photo

Those were some great times in my life, and that creative thoughtprocess still often rears its head at strange times and in surprisingplaces. Then I came across Ghee Happy on the web......Calling itself 'The little book of Hindu deities' Ghee Happy the bookis at once amusing, informative and entertaining and below are thesample pages at the Ghee Happy website.But wait, that's not all. There's more ! Really ? Yes ! It's not only a link toa book, but an enticing portal to an apparel collection for toddlers andinfants. Full of cute stuff that should appeal to children and parents alike.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

This is dedicated to the ones I love who remembered me before,during and after Hurricane Ike, when I lost my online services.Thank you all !!

So you may ask if reports of my death are greatly exaggerated and I replywearily, yes, they are. I have been away from this Blog before the impendingdisaster became a distinct possibility and then turned into grim reality forthousands of people. Not all of those people were in the direct path ofHurricane Ike which made landfall as a Category 2 storm but destroyedlives and property with the intensity of a Category 4 storm. In many placesthe damage equaled that of Hurricane Katrina and played out that wayfor many of the people affected that I spoke to.

For myself, I was forced to heed the official Evacuation notice by the localauthorities and so two days before the storm I was in a Sugarland Texas,in a safe place with my niece and nephew and their loved ones. Theinvitation for a single person like me with few resources was deeply touchingand reassuring. As it turned out, we spent that Thur. evening and all dayFriday having fun just hanging out chatting, eating andwatching non-stop TV coverage of hurried preparations and Evacuationsof areas as far away as Louisiana, roughly a 6-hour drive. No, I tried to stayawake till 12:30 a.m. on that fateful day but dozed off and woke at 3:00 a.m.or so to discover that the lights were gone and it was windy, rainy and warm.

It stayed that way through late afternoon until the sun came out and weall started cleaning up the branches and leaves,as if trying to erase the memory of how close we had been to Ike.A Hurricane had passed through and I had slept through it all ! At the timeI was really disappointed to find nothing serious had happened, little realizingthat miles away the destruction and aftermath had been so catastrophic.I got back home to find my digs and my carsame as it ever was with the exception of bird droppings, but others a fewfeet behind my apartment were not so lucky. At least eight cars were damagedwhen a carport smashed into them.

My next-door neighbor's father and his daughters in Hitchcock survived,had their power restored, lost it again and then lost their house and everythingin a fire that started when a huge power surge occurred a week after the storm.

Another neighbor who is disabled and recovering from a previous motorcycleaccident and has over 200 pins and a steel plate in his leg is alive, but his Iketroubles have only just begun. His Accident and Medical Insurance will run outand eventually so will his wife's. She lost her job due to Ike.

The official Search for survivors and the counting of the Missing has beengiven up by FEMA and the Police in most places. Military choppers and someRescue Boats comb the areas but not for victims. Their mission now is toensure the area is safe for residents to return and pick up the pieces.

Here's a link to the Chron.com ongoing compilation of Press and Amateurvideoclips, many just a few seconds long because they were taken under themost hazardous and deadly conditions.